Banco Santander SA (NYSE: SAN) has been making headlines by offering a payment app, currency converter, and digital wallet for Ripple (XRP) lately. That got me to wondering if Santander is a value investment and a smart way to cash in on the cryptocurrency bubble.
This makes Santander an interesting opportunity because it is a major bank with physical assets that is willing to work with cryptocurrency.
Santander’s involvement with Ripple goes beyond the app it is also using that cryptocurrency for cross-border payments in the United Kingdom. Santander’s use of Ripple includes cross-border payments between the United States and the UK in conjunction with American Express (NYSE: AXP).

Beyond Ripple, Santander is participating in the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance with many other companies. The alliance is an effort to build commercial decentralized applications (Dapps) for the Ethereum ecosystem. Such Dapps would presumably work with the Ethereum (ETH) cryptocurrency and ERC20 utility tokens.